Washington: The US Department of Health and Human Services has begun mass layoffs at various health agencies, including drug and tobacco safety regulators, as per a memo accessed by Bloomberg.
The decision is aligned with Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr plan to cut down the workforce in the national health services, which he had announced since he was sworn into the Trump administration.
The department started dismissing workers on April 1, with entire offices or portions of offices being cut, including those working on sexually transmitted diseases, global health, and birth defects, reported Bloomberg. Employees who were fired by the reduction-in-force notice were immediately locked out of their health agency computer systems, halting their work in the office and leaving them unable to communicate with partners.
Kennedy had announced on March 27 that he planned to terminate 10,000 employees from the national health services.
